Many Native tribes in North America use sweetgrass in prayer, smudging or purifying ceremonies and consider it a sacred plant.

Sweetgrass braids smolder and doesn't produce an open flame when burned. Just as the sweet scent of this natural grass is attractive and pleasing to people, so is it attractive to good spirits. Sweetgrass is often burned at the beginning of a prayer or ceremony to attract positive energies.

Sweetgrass is used to "smudge"; the smoke from burning sweetgrass is fanned on people, objects or areas.

Another benefit of burning sweet grass is that the smoke keeps pesky flying insects at bay.